


A Series of Unfortunate Events

by fredbassett



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 17:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: A series of domestic disasters brings Lester an unexpected houseguest.





	1. A Series of Unfortunate Events

Nick typed the final words of his report, saved the document and then emailed it to Lester and Jenny. It had taken him two hours and he had a crick in his neck from staring at the screen for too long. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.

His back ached, his shoulders were stiff and he was bloody knackered. A night in one of the bunkrooms didn’t hold much appeal, but at least the ARC was warm, which was more than could be said for his house. His central heating boiler had finally given up the ghost a week ago and he still hadn’t managed to find a heating engineer who would turn up when they said would. A week of steady anomaly activity hadn’t exactly been conducive to waiting in for house-calls, either.

The ping of an email arriving in his inbox drew Nick’s attention.

He opened the mail, expecting to see and delete an ‘out of office’ reply from Lester. It was from Lester but what it said was, ‘Have you no home to go to?’

He pressed reply, typed, ‘Not unless I want to freeze to death,’ and sent it. As an afterthought, he replied again and said, ‘You’re no bloody better.’

Without waiting for a reply, Nick closed down his computer, turned the lights off in his office and walked through the atrium, exchanging nods with the duty ADD technician, as he made his way up the curving ramp, heading for the atrium and a coffee.

He opened the door and was greeted by the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. Lester was sitting in one of the sofas and there were two mugs and a plate of biscuits on the low table in front of it.

“Burning the midnight oil again, Cutter? You know perfectly well I never authorise overtime payments.”

Nick took an appreciative sniff of the coffee. Lester had laced it with a hefty slug of whisky. He was also lying about the overtime but Nick didn’t challenge him on it. There were some niceties around their working relationship that had to be preserved, after all.

“It’s Friday night,” said Nick, settling back into the sofa and munching on a biscuit. “Your dinner’ll be in the cat by now. Doesn’t your wife get sick of the hours you keep?”

“Yes, that’s why she’s divorcing me.”

The words dropped between them like ice.

Nick sighed. “Ach, sorry. That wasn’t one of my most tactful comments.”

“Cutter, tact has never been one of your virtues.”

That wasn’t exactly something he could disagree with, so for once in his life, Nick maintained a discreet silence and ate another biscuit.

“So why are you shunning the delights of home?” Lester quirked one eyebrow in a gesture that Nick had always wanted to cultivate, particularly when faced by annoying undergraduates.

“Knackered boiler.”

“And as I know only too well, there’s no plumber in the Home Counties who can keep an appointment.” Lester sighed. “I had the same problem at my flat last month. I’ll find the card of the man who finally fixed it. He charged the earth but he did arrive when he said he would.”

Nick nodded his thanks and they finished the coffee and biscuits in a companionable silence.

* * * * *

Lester was true to his word. The following morning, Nick received an email with the name and phone number of a heating engineer.

Two minutes later, the alarm on the anomaly detection device went off, precipitating the usual scramble to their vehicles followed by a romp around the Sussex countryside on the trail of a herd of eohippus. Snow started to fall in the middle of the afternoon which made tracking easier and by 6pm they had the intruders rounded up and were able to bundle them back through the anomaly before it closed.

No civilians had been injured and no public relations disasters had occurred so it counted as a good day, but by the time Nick got back to his desk, it was too late to start phoning tradesmen about his boiler, so he spent another night in the ARC.

* * * * *

That set the pattern for the next two days which were busier than Nick could remember for some while. On the first day, the snow hampered their efforts to deal with a dire wolf and a litter of cubs, but they were successfully repatriated eventually, again with no casualties.

The temperature warmed up rapidly on the second day and they sat around in the middle of Epping Forest watching an anomaly which appeared to lead to the middle of another forest in the Carboniferous. They spent the day wielding insect nets and Nick was left with an uneasy feeling that they hadn’t actually caught everything that had come through, but eventually the anomaly winked out of existence and there was nothing more he could do.

He arrived back at his desk to find a handwritten note from Lester. It said: I have called the man for you. He’ll be at your house at 10am tomorrow. Take the day off. That’s an order.

Nick grinned and for once was not inclined to argue. He was getting heartily sick of the bunkroom with its white painted walls and narrow bed, but his house really was too cold for comfort at this time of year.

* * * * *

As soon as Nick opened the door he knew he’d been an idiot. There was water dripping through the hall ceiling and the carpet was sopping wet. Upstairs, things were even worse. The ceiling was down in his bedroom, wet plaster everywhere, and water was still flowing from the burst pipe near the header-tank in the loft.

The heating engineer arrived while he was still struggling to turn off the stop tap under the kitchen sink.

The man took one look around, pursed his lips, and promptly set about the job with a monkey-wrench, which proved more effectively than Nick’s spanner. While he went up into the roof to inspect the damage there, Nick telephoned his insurance company. The fact that he only had himself to blame didn’t make things any easier.

The only good thing was that his books had escaped damage. Clothes and bedding would dry out, as would carpets and furniture. It would just take time, and an awful lot of dehumidifiers.

On top of all that the boiler needed a new part which would have to be ordered, so it looked like he would be enjoying the comforts of the ARC for a while longer.

* * * * *

When he arrived at his desk two days after the flood, Nick found a note from Lester which read: I have a spare room. You’re welcome to it.

By then he was so heartily sick of living off microwaved meals in the recreation room and staring at the same mass-produced painting of sunflowers on the bunkroom wall that he accepted Lester’s offer without demure. Beggars certainly couldn’t afford to be choosers.

Lester’s flat overlooked the Thames and had stunning views out over the London Eye from a floor-to-ceiling window. It was sparsely but tastefully furnished, in an interesting mix of antique and modern furniture. The spare room held two single beds, a small desk and a computer, all of which Lester told Nick he was free to make use of. There was a small bathroom next door, again available for his sole use.

Nick was profuse in his thanks, all of which Lester waved aside, but he did allow Nick to pay for dinner in a small and exceedingly pleasant Italian restaurant around the corner from the flat.

To Nick’s surprise, Lester proved to be an undemanding companion. The evening passed quickly and Nick found himself laughing at a series of anecdotes concerning the shadier goings-on in the corridors of power in Whitehall. By the time they returned to the flat to finish the evening off with an exceedingly good brandy, Nick had started to relax and was chiming in with stories of life in academia. By unspoken agreement they kept away from anything resembling personal matters and in particular their respective marriages.

* * * * *

By the end of the first week, they had fallen into an easy routine. Unless disturbed by anomaly-related activities, Lester would cook for them one day, and the next Nick would pay for dinner in a restaurant. Their conversation still remained light and general but, to Nick’s surprise, they never seemed to run out of things to say. Lester had a razor-sharp brain and Nick found his political insights endlessly fascinating. In return, Lester displayed an interest in the more technical aspects of Nick’s work on the project and it was clear that the civil servant had been doing his homework.

For once, the inhabitants of the ARC managed to pass an uneventful day catching up on paperwork and expenses claims and by 5.30pm both Nick and Lester were ready to brave the rush-hour traffic. Even that appeared to be kind to them and they reached the flat in a surprisingly mellow mood for a Friday evening.

Nick hung his jacket up in the cloakroom and toed off his boots while Lester went through his usual routine of checking the day’s post. Nick left him to it and went to make the gin and tonics which they treated themselves to at the end of a working week. By the time he took the drinks through to the living room, Lester still hadn’t moved from the hallway.

He was staring down at a piece of paper in his hand, lost in thought. A moment later, clearly conscious of Nick’s eyes on him, he folded the paper up carefully and slipped it back in the envelope. When Lester took the glass from Nick’s hands it was with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Conversation that night was unusually stilted. Lester had retired behind a wall that Nick lacked the means to breach. His manner was polite but distant. The envelope and its contents were not mentioned.

They ate filet steak, dauphinoise potatoes and peas in silence and drank more red wine than usual before retiring to the living room, still in silence. An hour later, Lester roused himself with an obvious effort, poured two large brandies and set one down on the small table next to the chair Nick habitually used.

“It was my decree absolute, Cutter.”

Nick looked up, surprised by the revelation and touched by the confidence. The words I’m sorry seemed inadequate, but he said them anyway.

Lester took a sip of his drink and stared out of the window.

“How long were you married for?” Nick kicked himself for asking the question, but the question was out of his mouth before he could bite it back.

“Fifteen years, two months and five days.”  
Nick took a mouthful of his own drink and managed not to say, But who’s counting. Maybe he was managing to learn some tact, after all.

The look Lester gave him said that he’d drawn the same conclusion, but the half-smile which accompanied the look was a slight improvement.

Both men retired to bed early. It took a long time for Nick to get to sleep that night, and he suspected he wasn’t the only one staring into the darkness, dwelling on the past.

* * * * *

The reconstruction work on Nick’s house proceeded slowly but steadily. It had proved a bigger job than he’d anticipated and eventually he had to bow to the inevitable and put many of his books and other possessions into temporary storage, simply to allow a small army of plasterers, decorators and other workmen room to move.

He gave up on some of the carpets and ordered new ones. The insurance company paid, but it was simply one more thing which had to be chosen and ordered, with the inevitable delays for fitting. Getting the plaster dried out ready for decoration was the main problem in winter, but Lester seemed in no hurry to reclaim the use of his spare room. This gave Nick the luxury of allowing the works to take their own time, without him having to fight a constant – and probably losing – battle against other people’s schedules. He even managed to joke about the inevitable tendency of British workmen to down tools in the middle of one job and dash off to another, rather than getting stressed about it.

Nick also had to admit that James Lester was the main reason he’d managed to survive the disruption to his life and still stay sane. The alternative would have been to book into a hotel or a bed and breakfast for the duration, but when he’d suggested that, Lester had politely but firmly put his foot down, refusing to let Nick consider himself to be an imposition.

So they worked together, ate together, watched television together and, to Nick’s lasting amazement, appeared not to get on each other’s nerves. On occasion, the conversation even crossed the line into personal without either of them shying away.

Nick learned that Lester had met his wife at university and married her two years later. They had two children, aged 14 and 12, both of whom went to boarding school. Caroline, his ex-wife, worked for the Foreign Office, but it had not made her more tolerant of Lester’s own career path and they had gradually grown apart. He had accepted it but had not wanted the marriage to end. She, however, had met someone else and had wanted a clean break. Or as clean a break as was possible with children involved.

Lester saw his children frequently and would have them to stay in the holidays, but even he had to admit that the demands of his current job were not conducive to family arrangements. More than once Nick had listened to Lester on the phone apologising for failure to meet his obligations and it didn’t take a mind-reader to know how the civil servant felt on those occasions. The pained look on his face said it all.

On days like that, it made Nick thankful that he and Helen had never had children.

* * * * *

It took nearly two months for Nick’s house to be returned to a habitable state but eventually it was ready for him to move his belongings back into. The return coincided with a cessation of anomaly-related activities and in the space of a long weekend Nick was able reoccupy the house and start to turn it back into a home again.

Two days later, he had to face the fact that he missed Lester’s company.

* * * * *

Nick decided to take a leaf out of James Lester’s book. Arriving at work early on a Thursday morning, he scribbled a note which said: Dinner, my house, Friday night.

He was treated to a smile and a nod in the morning meeting.

Nick knew he wasn’t much of a cook, but he also knew what Lester liked, which made life easier. To his amazement, the ADD didn’t ruin his plans and he was home by 6.30pm. A quick shower and a change of clothes left him plenty of time to make the preparations and by 7.30, when Lester arrived, as punctual as ever, all Nick had to do was pour two gin and tonics and add slices of lime.

They retired to the living room and fell into their usual routine of swopping stories of the day’s events. Nick had been engaged most of the day on readying a paper for publication, being careful to ensure that nothing he said breached the Official Secrets Act, while Lester had spent the afternoon in a budget meeting in the Home Office. Lester appeared reasonably certain that he had emerged victorious on all counts, which both men agreed merited a second large gin.

Half an hour later, they were enjoying smoked salmon and champagne and Lester seemed as relaxed as Nick had ever seen him. Shortly afterwards, Nick served a main meal consisting of Dover sole, new potatoes and salad, all of which was eaten with relish.

“I didn’t know you could cook, Cutter,” said Lester, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Next time you render yourself homeless, I’ll give you the run of the kitchen as well.”

“You’ve just eaten my entire repertoire,” grinned Nick, carefully concealing the fact that he’d cooked Dover sole for most of the week, until he was certain he could manage it properly.

They finished off with a cheeseboard courtesy of Nick’s local delicatessen, which he knew Lester preferred to dessert, and retired again to the living room for coffee and brandies.

While Nick tidied away their plates, Lester entertained himself by browsing through Nick’s book collection then he surprised Nick by joining him on the settee, rather than choosing one of the armchairs. Nick’s stomach fluttered slightly and he realised with a start that he hadn’t felt a sensation like that since he’d first asked Helen back to his flat, a month after he’d met her.

With something approaching shyness, Nick settled back into the corner of the settee and crossed one ankle comfortably over his knee, carefully avoiding meeting Lester’s eyes.

An amused chuckle put paid to his avoidance tactics.

Lester deposited his glass on the coffee table, whisked Nick’s out of his fingers and set it down next to it, saying, “Cutter, we’ve danced around each other like a couple of virgins on a first date for long enough.”

Nick’s eyes shot wide open and he groped for words. He was still trying to find his brain again when Lester’s lips closed lightly over his and a tongue which tasted pleasantly of brandy slipped into his mouth. Nick allowed Lester to deepen the kiss. A hand slipped around the back of his neck and then they were kissing properly, but unlike kisses with Helen, it didn’t turn into a battle for dominance, but remained a kiss between equals.

When Lester finally drew back, it was Nick’s turn to chuckle. “If I’d known the way to your heart was through your stomach, I would have offered to cook weeks ago.”

A slight smile quirked Lester’s lips. “I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to send you a memo. You can be remarkably oblivious, Cutter, you do know that, don’t you?”

Nick grinned. “Aye, it has been mentioned. I suppose there might be some truth in it.”

Lester snorted and ran the tips of his fingers lightly across the back of Nick’s hand. “I believe the prevalent opinion in the office is that we’ve been at it like rabbits for the past month.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “And I’m the last one to know, I suppose?”

His companion nodded and followed it up with another kiss.

Their progress towards the bedroom was unhurried but they arrived there eventually, still kissing. Clothes were shed in an equally unhurried manner and their hands started to explore each others bodies in a leisurely fashion, but the first touch of Lester’s hand on his cock made Nick gasp. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since a hand other than his own had touched him there.

Things became rather more urgent after that. Nick hadn’t been with a man since a certain amount of experimentation in his student days and he’d forgotten just how good the rasp of stubble felt against his skin. There was nothing in the hard, lean planes of James Lester’s body to remind him of Helen and Nick soon lost himself in a world of warmth and touch, giving and receiving pleasure in equal measure.

He reached his first climax of the night in Lester’s mouth, hands gripping the other man’s shoulders tightly enough to bruise, but he received no complaints. At some point, Lester produced a packet of condoms and a tube of lubricant from his discarded clothing and quirked one eyebrow questioningly at Nick.

Nick took the foil packet from Lester and ripped it open with his teeth. His companion’s hard cock jutted out from the tangle of dark hair at his groin. Nick leaned down and ran his tongue over the head, savouring the salty tang. He was rewarded by a groan. He sucked Lester’s cock into his mouth, rolling his tongue around it experimentally. This wasn’t something he had any practice at, but he had no aversion to trying.

“I’m not going to last long like this, Cutter,” said Lester in a surprisingly conversational tone of voice. “You’d better decide what you want. I think I might be somewhat beyond the stage of managing to get it up twice a night.”

Nick grinned around his mouthful but drew back anyway. He already knew what he wanted.

Slowly, he rolled the condom down Lester’s hard length then settled himself onto his stomach, his head pillowed on one arm. Lester pressed a light kiss between Nick’s shoulder blades then started to massage his back, working steadily down until his hands finally came to rest on Nick’s buttocks. Gently, Lester spread the cheeks of his arse and ran a tongue lightly over Nick’s hole.

Christ, that was a new one on him and for a moment Nick stiffened in embarrassment, unsure how to react.

“Relax,” Lester breathed, and licked a long, wet stripe up Nick’s body before returning to lap insistently at his hole.

Nick took a deep breath and did as he was told. It felt good, so bloody good, but he needed more now. He wanted Lester inside him.

He felt a cool, slick finger replace Lester’s tongue and press lightly against the entrance to his body. He pushed back against the intrusion and the finger slipped into him easily. Nick’s face flushed with embarrassment and he felt himself tense up against it.

Lester’s other hand rubbed small circles on his back and an amused voice said, “I thought I told you to relax?”

Nick glanced over his shoulder with a wry smile. “I thought I was doing quite well considering the last time I did anything like this was at university.”

“Well, they do say that university broadens the mind,” said Lester, slipping a second finger into Nick’s body and stroking gently in and out.

The fingers crooked slightly and Nick felt a jolt of pleasure through his body. “What the hell was that?” he gasped.

“Your prostate, Professor Cutter. Do I take it university didn’t extend your education quite that far?”

It was Nick’s turn to chuckle. “Lester, the other bloke was reading history, not biology and we were both 19. We were also drunk. If you must know, it felt like taking a crap in reverse. He fired after three strokes, which was fortunate, really.”

Lester’s laugh was low and throaty and he continued the slow, exquisite drift of his fingers. “Ah, the joys of student life,” he murmured, gently slipping a third finger into Nick’s increasingly relaxed body and continuing to massage his prostate.

Nick squirmed with pleasure and realised with surprise that he was getting hard again. He couldn’t remember when anything had last felt this good. He was over the embarrassment of such intimate contact and was definitely enjoying this. Lester seemed to be determined to stretch him as much as possible before replacing his fingers with his cock, but eventually he nudged Nick’s legs apart and settled between them, his weight on one elbow while his other hand guided his cock to Nick’s entrance.

The penetration was slow and gentle. Lester allowed him to adjust to the sensation of being stretched and filled before setting up an equally gentle rhythm which gradually became harder and deeper. Nick groaned with pleasure, sweat breaking out on his body. He hadn’t realised it could feel like this. He pushed back, meeting Lester’s thrusts enthusiastically.

Strong arms slid under Nick’s body, tugging him to his knees on the bed while Lester changed the angle of his thrusts so that each stroke was raking his prostate, sending sparks through his body to dance along his spine. He was panting now, head thrown back, eyes closed then Lester’s long fingers grasped his cock and started to stroke him in time with each thrust into his body.

Nick cried out, his body tightening around Lester’s cock as he hit his second climax of the night, come spurting onto the sheets below him. Lester groaned and lost his rhythm, thrusting raggedly into Nick’s body at the same time as pressing hot, wet kisses onto his back. Nick felt his lover stiffen and groan, pushing hard up against him, holding Nick tight as though he never wanted to let go.

They subsided gracelessly into a heap on the bed, laughing and panting, all reserve finally swept away. Lester gentled him through the final tremors of an orgasm made more intense by the fact that for once, he hadn’t been the instigator of his own climax.

Nick twisted in his lover’s arms, seeking out his mouth for a breathless kiss.

Lester lay on his back, panting, one arm looped around Nick’s waist, his eyes closed and his face open and vulnerable in a way that Nick had never seen before.

He leaned down and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Lester’s lips. “Thank you, James,” he murmured. “I rather think you’re better at this than I am.”

“Practice makes perfect,” said Lester with a lazy, contented smile. “Rather like cooking, and the results are equally as satisfying. Dare I hope that this might become a regular occurrence, Nick?”

Nick smiled down at him. “I think that could be arranged. There’s another four Dover soles in the fridge, just in case I mucked the first lot up.”

Feeling sated, and happier than he could remember in years, Nick disposed of the condom, cleaned then both up, then snuggled down again under the duvet, his head resting on Lester’s shoulder.

He had no idea what the future held, for either of them, but for the first time Nick allowed himself to hope that he might not have to face it alone.


	2. A Series of Unexpected Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although Christmas doesn’t go entirely to plan, Nick gets to spend some time with Lester afterwards, but even that takes an unexpected turn.

The sound of the telephone being slammed down in the inner office brought a frown to the normally impassive face of Lester’s secretary.

Nick handed over the report on the previous day’s anomaly and murmured, “Should I make myself scarce?”

“It was his ex-wife,” Lorraine replied, equally quietly. “She’s taking the children skiing at Christmas.”

The stony expression on his lover’s face told Nick all he needed to know. And he had spent enough time in James Lester’s company to realise that any discussion of the matter would be strictly off limits in the office, but it was Friday afternoon and they would be spending the weekend together, so he could afford to wait.

* * * * *

The drive back to Lester’s London flat was accomplished in silence. While Nick poured two large gin and tonics, adding ice and a slice of lime, Lester went into the bedroom to change, emerging a few minutes later wearing a pair of dark linen trousers, a shapeless sweater, a pair of battered slippers and the same frown that had settled on his face mid-afternoon.

“Is this the first Christmas you’ll have spent without seeing the children?” Nick said, deciding to take the bull by the horns as he handed over the heavy cut-glass tumbler.

Lester nodded and sipped at his drink. “She’s doing it deliberately and there’s bugger-all I can do about it.” He stared out of the huge picture window overlooking the London Eye and set his drink down on a small table.

Nick took a mouthful of the cool liquid, savouring the taste. Lester really did have a selection of excellent gins. Putting his own glass down, he stood behind his lover and slipped his arms around Lester’s waist. “I’m sorry, James.”

Lester sighed and leant back against Nick’s chest. “I’ve been expecting it, but that doesn’t seem to have made it any easier. The kids will love it, which is what matters, but…”

“But you’ll miss them like hell,” Nick finished for him, tightening his embrace and finally feeling Lester start to relax. He’d often wondered what it would be like to have had children of his own, but at the end of the day it wasn’t something he really missed. His life with Helen had been too volatile for either of them to have relished the idea of adding a baby to the mix. He knew that Lester did his best to be a good father, in spite of the pressures of a job that made no concessions to anyone’s private life, but that didn’t seem to cut much ice with his ex-wife and this was simply another of the ways in which she chose to pay Lester back for the failure of their marriage. The fact that her ex-husband was now in a relationship with another man hadn’t exactly helped matters, although Lester’s children had taken the news with surprising equanimity.

Peter, the youngest, was dinosaur mad, even at the age of 12, so Nick’s credentials had been established immediately and the pair of them had spent hours tramping the coastline in search of fossils. Claire, 14 going on 30, had inherited her father’s abrasive wit and wasn’t afraid to use it, but when she’d realised that sarcasm was water off a duck’s back so far as Nick was concerned, she’d brought hostilities to an abrupt end by delivering a surprisingly polished ‘hurt him and no one will ever find your body’ speech. Since then, they’d got on like a house on fire.

Nick hadn’t been together with Lester the previous Christmas and he’d been very careful not to broach the subject of what might happen this year, simply expecting Lester to spend at least part of the day with his family. Nick had received an invitation to spend Christmas with some friends from the university but he’d made a polite excuse, hoping that he’d at least get to have a couple of hours with his lover at some point during the day.

He rubbed his cheek against Lester’s, feeling the faint rasp of stubble that would become more pronounced over the weekend, as the normally immaculate Sir James Lester relaxed and refused to shave again until Monday morning.

“I could have a go at cooking a turkey,” Nick said, nipping gently at Lester’s earlobe.

Lester shuddered theatrically. “Cutter, the fridge isn’t big enough to house your practice pieces, much as I appreciate the sentiment.”

The sharp knife of disappointment twisted in Nick’s stomach. It looked like he might have been too quick off the mark in declining Sam and Mary’s invitation. He opened his mouth to make some sort of light rejoinder when Lester twisted in his arms and kissed him fiercely. Nick knew the other man well enough to recognise an apology when it was being delivered by an agile tongue and warm lips.

When they finally parted enough to draw breath, Lester remarked, “Goose.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, but pinched Lester’s arse anyway. It earned him an eye-roll but the small movement Lester made away from his fingers brought their cocks together in a most satisfactory manner. “Goose?”

“Goose. Cooked by me. If Caroline is taking the children to Verbier, there’s nothing to stop us using the cottage...” Lester hesitated and then sighed. “I’m sorry, Nick, I’ve been meaning to broach the subject for weeks but…”

“But we’re both crap at personal stuff.” Nick smiled. “And in the spirit of the festive season I’ll even overlook that gross slur on my culinary abilities.”

“I’ll allow you to peel the potatoes and the sprouts,” Lester said magnanimously.

“Do I have to put crosses in the bottom?”

“Of course. Standards have to be maintained or the country will begin a slow but inevitable decline into anarchy.”

“Did you know my grandmother?”

Lester chuckled and rested his head on Nick’s shoulder.

Half an hour later, when Lester was busy in the kitchen and Nick received a text from his lover’s daughter that read is dad ok?, he was able to reply in the affirmative, without stretching the truth too far.

* * * * *

As it turned out, anomaly-related activity chose the Christmas period to spike in a way they hadn’t experienced for months and contrived to throw a very large spanner into the entire team’s plans. The goose was consigned to the freezer and Christmas dinner consisted of sandwiches in the ARC while Lester distributed DA notices like confetti and did his best to ride shotgun for an increasingly harassed Jenny Lewis. Fortunately, a scandal involving a minor member of the Royal Family, someone else’s husband and a small quantity of cocaine contrived to distract the press from the activities of a herd of mammoth in Epping Forest and the tried and tested student prank cover story was trotted out again to good effect.

By the time the rash of problems had finally subsided, Christmas and New Year had come and gone, Lester’s ex-wife and children had returned from their skiing holiday and the anomaly response teams were desperately in need of a break.

After five days without any call-outs, Lester finally relented and gave everyone a long weekend off. Ten minutes after his announcement large fat flakes of snow started to fall from a leaden sky, precipitating an unseemly rush while everyone cleared their desks and made good their escape before the roads descended into the usual mayhem that accompanied anything other than drizzle.

Nick stared out of the window of Lester’s office at the settling snow. “I presume this buggers our chances of that weekend in the country you promised me?”

“What’s your Hilux like in snow?”

“Better than your Mercedes. And I’ve got a set of chains for it.”

“Good. I took the precaution of defrosting the goose yesterday and getting in a few supplies. Everything we need for the weekend is in the boot of my car.”

“You never said anything.” It looked like Lester might not have given up on their weekend away after all.

“I couldn’t have borne the disappointed look on Mr Temple’s little face if I’d raised their hopes of a weekend off only to dash them at the last minute.”

“Liar.”

Lester grinned. “Guilty as charged.”

Half an hour later, they were making their way to the south coast in a steady stream of traffic on ever-whitening roads. The Hilux was loaded with enough food and drink to keep them going for quite some while, and Nick simply hoped that they weren’t going to be on the receiving end of yet another anomaly call. Responding to anything in this weather would have been even more nightmarish than usual, although the mammoths they’d spent Christmas Day dealing with would no doubt have felt at home.

A journey that would normally have taken a little over two hours turned into a four-hour marathon and there were times when Nick thought that they would probably have been wiser to have settled for a weekend in London. But eventually, they made their way into what looked like a very exclusive private estate on the Sussex coast, with large houses set back behind high hedges, reached by sweeping driveways. And although Nick couldn’t see the sea, Lester assured him it was only a couple of minutes walk away.

At Lester’s direction he parked on a patch of pristine snow in front of a large double garage set some way back from the road and followed his lover through a locked gate into a neat garden surrounded by a massive beech hedge that must have looked magnificent in leaf. Snow was lying thickly on the ground and was also covering the roof of a thatched cottage that wouldn’t have been out of place pictured on the lid of a box of chocolates.

It looked considerably older than most of the surrounding houses. Lester had explained on the drive down that it had belonged to his parents and had been left to him when they’d died. He’d kept it on as the children loved spending their holidays here and it gave him a bolt-hole to retreat to when he needed to unwind from the pressures of the job.

Lester had phoned ahead to the local couple who looked after the cottage for him and lights twinkled in the leaded glass panes of the windows and the wood-burning stove in the main room had been lit and was already providing very welcome warmth.

They quickly unloaded the Hilux and filled the large fridge. The main bedroom was at the back of the cottage overlooking a small snow-covered kitchen garden. A thick duvet covered by a cheerful patchwork quilt adorned a king-sized bed and gave the room a cosy look that reminded Nick of holidays spent in Scotland with his grandmother.

They ate a simple meal of soup and bread and then settled themselves down on the large leather sofa to watch the late evening news on the television. Recriminations about insufficient gritting had started already and it seemed they’d narrowly escaped getting snowed in on the M23. In short, the country had thrown itself with customary enthusiasm into the national sport of bitching about the weather.

They were both tired from the drive and by mutual assent retired to bed early. The bed was every bit as comfortable as it looked and the gentle warmth of an electric blanket provided unaccustomed luxury.

With his head pillowed on Lester’s shoulder and his arm draped around his lover’s waist, Nick slipped quickly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * * * *

Nick came awake slowly, conscious of the fact that Lester was pressed up against his back and not wanting to disturb his still-sleeping lover. Their opportunities for a lie-in were few and far between and after the few weeks they’d endured, he had no objection to taking things easy for once. The world seemed to have been enveloped in the sort of muffled silence that always seemed to accompany heavy snowfalls.

Eventually, pressure on his bladder drove Nick from his warm cocoon and into the adjoining bathroom. A glance out of the window told him that the snow had finally stopped falling and wintery sunlight was peeping out through a break in the clouds. If an anomaly alert came through now, their chances of reaching it were slender and Nick allowed himself the hope that they might actually manage to enjoy a few days of peace and quiet, consisting of nothing more than long walks on the beach, good food and making love. Speaking of which…

In the time Nick had been out of bed, Lester had turned over, and Nick was able to slip back under the duvet and spoon up behind him. Lester grunted and pushed his arse back into Nick’s groin, which promptly had an effect on Nick’s cock. He slipped his arm around his lover’s waist and ran his fingertips up an already pronounced erection. Lester murmured something unintelligible and thrust lazily into Nick’s hand. A few moments later, Nick reached out and snagged the tube of lubricant he’d deposited on the bedside table, slicking his cock and massaging some over Lester’s tight hole. They’d dispensed with condoms several months ago but Nick thought he’d never get tired of the sensation of Lester’s hot, clinging channel clenched around his cock as he slowly and carefully pushed inside his lover’s body.

They made love unhurriedly, enjoying the lack of any outside pressures and afterwards lay entwined in each other’s arms, trading lazy kisses, neither in any hurry to seek further contact with the world at large. But eventually the need for coffee asserted itself and they showered and dressed. After two mugs of coffee they decided to brave the cold for a walk on the beach. A narrow lane led between the houses on the estate down to a grassy foreshore that quickly gave way to a wide expanse of snow-covered pebbles shelving quite steeply into the rolling grey waves of the English Channel.

This wasn’t a stretch of coastline that Nick was familiar with but he quickly discovered it was worth braving the weather for. Wooden breakwaters stood out of the waves at regular intervals, stark against the snow, making Nick wish he’d brought his camera. He made his way down to the water’s edge and picked up a flat stone, skimming it lightly over the waves. Three bounces. Not bad for someone who hadn’t thrown a stone over water for longer than he cared to remember. At his side, Lester bent down, selected a stone and sent it skipping away across the water. Five bounces. The battle lines had been drawn.

They called a halt to the game when Nick couldn’t feel his fingers. He’d managed to push Lester to a draw and together the two men made their way along the deserted beach. The wind from the sea was cold but according to Lester they could return to the cottage via an inland, more sheltered, route.

“If we’re lucky, the Blue Bird café will be open for business,” commented Lester. “They do an excellent bacon roll.”

Much to Nick’s surprise, the café was open, and they settled themselves down at a table by the window, staring out from a warm room over the cold expanse of the Channel. In the distance, an enormous tanker made steady progress along one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Lester had been right, the bacon rolls were extremely good, and so were the steaming mugs of hot chocolate topped off with whipped cream.

The noise of Lester’s mobile phone cut sharply through their conversation, sending an unwelcome spike of adrenaline through Nick’s system until Lester managed to produce the phone from inside several layers of clothing and work out that the caller was his daughter.

“Hello, darling. Are you snowed in? .... Yes, I’m at the cottage with Nick.” Whatever Claire said next sent her father’s eyebrows shooting up. “Is she all right?”

From what Nick could gather from the side of the conversation he could hear, Lester’s ex-wife had slipped on an icy pavement the previous evening and broken her wrist. She was now at her sister’s in Hampstead and Claire appeared to be making a concerted attempt to get her father to agree to her and Peter coming down to the cottage for what remained of the school holidays. Lester’s comment that the trains were almost certainly not running was immediately trumped by his daughter who claimed to have checked this out and discovered a train arriving in Littlehampton at 2.30, and as two others on that route had already left on time, it appeared that for once the railways appeared to be coping slightly better than the roads.

In response to the helpless glance Lester cast at him, Nick finally took pity on his lover and said, “If they can get here safely, of course they should come, James. There’s enough food in that fridge to feed an army.”

Lester rolled his eyes and said to his daughter, “Yes, brat. For some unaccountable reason, Nick hasn’t tried to drown himself at the thought of being cooped up with you for the weekend, so call me when you’re on the train and we’ll be there to meet you.” He disconnected the call and shot Nick an apologetic look. “I’m sure Caroline has only suggested they come down here in the hope of ruining our quiet weekend.”

“I very much doubt she broke her wrist with that in mind,” Nick said with a grin. “That’s somewhat extreme, even for her. Anyway, I like your kids. And it’ll make up for you not seeing them at Christmas.”

They finished their drinks and made their way back to the cottage. The sun shone in a clear blue sky, glazing the top of the snow, but the temperatures were still too low for a thaw and they would have to be careful on the roads, even in the Hilux, but Nick had to admit that the countryside was beautiful like this.

They spent the rest of the morning reading a newspaper they’d bought in the café and relaxing. A call from Claire a little while later indicated that she was on the train with her brother and it had left London only ten minutes late. It lost some more time en route, arriving nearly 20 minutes after its scheduled time, but considering the travel disruptions elsewhere in the country, Nick was simply impressed that the children had reached them at all. He watched with a smile as Lester hugged them both, his eyes shining with pleasure.

Peter, a quiet lad, with his father’s dark hair and the same piercing eyes shook Nick’s hand solemnly and politely. Claire, taller and fairer, just gave him a grin and a nod, which he returned in kind.

Nick didn’t have much experience with children, but his willingness to answer a steady stream of dinosaur-related queries stood him in good stead with Peter. Claire seemed to be happy to curl up in a chair by the fire with her iPhone, sending seemingly endless text messages to her friends and surfing the internet. Lester busied himself in the kitchen with the goose and other preparations for dinner while Nick tried hard not to breach the Official Secrets Act during a discussion on the hunting habits of small dromaeosaurs.

To his surprise, the evening flew by. The meal was excellent and even the phone call from Lester’s ex-wife that interrupted dessert didn’t put a damper on the evening, although the fact that it was Nick who answered the phone to her while Lester was serving large helpings of plum pudding clearly didn’t go down particularly well.

“I’m meant to make sure you go to bed by 9 o’clock,” Lester told Peter, when he came back into the dining room.

“But Dad, there’s a programme on telly about the dinosaur mummy! I wanted to watch it with Nick. Please!”

“And I’m meant to make sure that you don’t spend all your time texting someone called David,” he commented to Claire, earning a look of pure outrage. “Boyfriend?”

“He’s a friend from school and Mum doesn’t like him,” Claire said, sidestepping the question.

“It’s a well-known fact your mother’s taste in men is fatally flawed,” Lester said dryly. “Naturally, I shall conform to the stereotype of an absent parent and indulge the pair of you shamelessly. And if either of you rat me out to your mother I’ll deny everything. Got that?”

“We’ll load the dishwasher,” Claire said, smiling sweetly at her father and nudging her brother in the ribs, thus avoiding any further discussion on the subject of boyfriends while they gathered up the bowls and took them out to the kitchen.

“I suppose she did spend the whole time I was cooking texting?” Lester muttered as soon as they were out of the room.

“Can’t be that serious if she was happy to come down here,” Nick commented, thankful that he wasn’t the proud possessor of a teenaged daughter.

“He’s at his grandparents in Edinburgh until school starts again, according to Caroline.”

“And if he hurts her, no one will ever find the body,” Nick grinned, squeezing his lover’s hand sympathetically. “I know the speech, I had it from Claire when we first met.”

The rest of the evening was spent in front of the television. To Peter’s delight, Nick was well acquainted with the team working on the mummified body of a hadrosaur found in North Dakota and was able to keep the boy entertained with various behind the scenes snippets of information. As predicted, Claire spent most of the evening with her thumbs flying over the screen of her iPhone in a way that would probably even have impressed Connor and at 10pm both of them retired to bed, leaving Nick and Lester alone to enjoy a quiet drink in front of the fire.

“They’re nice kids,” Nick remarked, sipping appreciatively at his Talisker.

Lester smiled. “Yes, in spite of our best efforts, Caroline and I seemed to have brought up two remarkably pleasant human beings. I keep wondering when it’s all going to go spectacularly down the pan, but if the worst of it so far is a boy called David who wants to be an army officer like his dad, I’ll count myself lucky.”

“I noticed the subtle line of questioning.”

“Was I too obvious?”

“Just don’t apply for a job in M15.” Nick advised, leaning on Lester’s shoulder and staring into the fire warming the room from behind the smoky glass of the black stove. “That was a lovely meal, James. Thank you.”

“Thank you for putting up with my kids,” Lester said quietly. “I know it’s not how we’d planned to spend the weekend, but…”

Nick silenced him with a kiss.

It wasn’t how he’d expected to spend the weekend, he’d be the first to admit that, but he also knew he wouldn’t have traded that evening for a different one for all the whisky in Scotland. James Lester was an intensely private man and after nine months of sharing a bed, Nick was beginning to realise that there were shared experiences even more intimate than sex.

Tonight had been one of them and Nick had enjoyed every minute of it.


End file.
